News Archive

The University of Alabama at Birmingham started construction today on a $22.5 million project to replace its Comprehensive Cancer Center’s aging radiation treatment facility.

Posted on January 9, 2007 at 2:30 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The University of Alabama at Birmingham started construction today on a $22.5 million project to replace its Comprehensive Cancer Center’s aging radiation treatment facility.

The cancer center’s “Rays of Hope” campaign is approaching its $15 million goal to help build the state-of-the-art building. A $1 million gift from Birmingham’s James “Jim” Limbaugh was announced at groundbreaking ceremonies today, bringing the current total to $11 million, from private gifts and other sources.

The 50,000-square-foot, two-story structure will be connected by overhead walkway to the UAB Hospital across 18th Street South near Sixth Avenue. The Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Facility, expected to be completed in 2008, will allow the transfer of linear accelerators and other treatments from the 31-year-old Wallace Tumor Institute into a modern, patient-friendly building with separate waiting areas for children and adults. The radiation oncology department also will be located in the new building.

Edward E. Partridge, M.D., acting director of the UAB Cancer Center, said, “This building will indeed offer substantial rays of hope to the people of Alabama who require radiation for their cancer. We are extremely grateful to the 400-plus people who have already contributed to the project and to the community leaders spearheading the drive.”

UAB president Carol Z. Garrison thanked campaign co-chairs Foots Parnell, Barbara Royal and Dianne Mooney “for their remarkable dedication and energy in leading this initiative. We are also most appreciative of the efforts of their 15-member committee and for all the volunteers who are helping with this endeavor.” She noted that the UAB Cancer Center Supporters Board raised more than $1 million for the facility from its 2006 Gala.

Mountain Brook businessman W. Cobb Hazelrig donated the largest individual gift so far—$5 million—to name the facility after his parents, Virginia and the late J. William Hazelrig, and their longtime friends, Birmingham physicians Paul and Merle Salter. Merle Salter, now retired, chaired the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology from 1986 to 1995.

Jim Limbaugh’s million-dollar donation in part will fund an open area adjacent to the new building that will provide a fountain, benches and green space for patients and families. It will be named the James Limbaugh Family Park of Hope, In Memory of Phyllis Limbaugh. The name honors Limbaugh’s late wife, who succumbed to lymphoma cancer in 1981. Limbaugh, now retired, has owned four successful automobile dealerships in the area. His son Bruce is the owner of Limbaugh Toyota.

“It is my sincere hope that this park will be a place of reflection and renewal for patients receiving radiation treatment at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center,” he said. “My wife personified hope and courage, and the park is my way of helping her memory live on.”

More than 30,000 patient visits are made to UAB radiation oncology each year from across the Southeast. Radiation Oncology Chair James A. Bonner, M.D., said the new facility will provide more suitable, larger space for newer technology that will be standard for the field in the future. “And just as important, it will provide an appropriate, separate area for the state’s pediatric cancer patients, most of whom, including all from Children’s Hospital, receive their radiation treatment at UAB,” Bonner said.

He noted that UAB was one of the first 10 institutions in the world to be outfitted with state-of-the-art TomoTherapy, a version of image-guided radiation therapy. His department is one of the few radiation oncology units in the country with a research component, holding a $3.6 million award from the National Institutes of Health.

The department has doubled its faculty in recent years, allowing each member to specialize in one or two disease sites. It also boasts seven physicists on staff to help design treatment strategies and provide quality assurance.

The cancer center’s “Rays of Hope” campaign, launched in November 2005, still offers various naming opportunities in within the park and throughout the building. For information, call 205-934-0282.